Hi, I just bought a new betta fish from Petsmart after my others passed away. His small size was cute at first, and he is very vibrant! That got me hooked on him. His size was not like the others in the store, though. I was wondering if he is going to be a runt all of his life (if that's even possible for bettas?), or if he'll grow. Right now, he is half the size of my friend's betta. His body is about an inch long. (The picture below shows his size compared to my hand and a pen that I had right up at the tank).

I installed a small filter for 1-3 gallon tanks in there (this tank is 2.5 gallons), and I'm scared he's going to get sucked up because of his small size. He swims by it and his tail starts to get sucked into it before he swims away. Because of this, I was going to wait until he grows to install it again, but I don't know how much bigger he'll get. I'd rather not take my chances with such a beautiful fish, and I have the worst anxieties when it comes to this.

On a side note, he is very brave! I had to move some stems of the plant to make room for the filter, and he swam by my hand with no problems. He isn't easily scared like my past bettas, and he's only a baby. That made me laugh a little.

Hi, I just bought a new betta fish from Petsmart after my others passed away. His small size was cute at first, and he is very vibrant! That got me hooked on him. His size was not like the others in the store, though. I was wondering if he is going to be a runt all of his life (if that's even possible for bettas?), or if he'll grow. Right now, he is half the size of my friend's betta. His body is about an inch long. (The picture below shows his size compared to my hand and a pen that I had right up at the tank).

I installed a small filter for 1-3 gallon tanks in there (this tank is 2.5 gallons), and I'm scared he's going to get sucked up because of his small size. He swims by it and his tail starts to get sucked into it before he swims away. Because of this, I was going to wait until he grows to install it again, but I don't know how much bigger he'll get. I'd rather not take my chances with such a beautiful fish, and I have the worst anxieties when it comes to this.

On a side note, he is very brave! I had to move some stems of the plant to make room for the filter, and he swam by my hand with no problems. He isn't easily scared like my past bettas, and he's only a baby. That made me laugh a little.

I wouldn't worry about the filter....When I first got my betta, he was about an inch and a half including his tail and I had a top fin 10 filter in there! He was just fine. And fish have this thing where they grow throughout their whole lives, so he may be done with his initial growth spurt, but he will grow at least a tiny bit over time :). hope this helped!

actually, what kind of filter do you have? Some a way over-rated for the gallon amount, especially for a betta (they dont need as much filtering). You could try an internal filter....they are generally very gentle and they only cost like 15 bucks....

actually, what kind of filter do you have? Some a way over-rated for the gallon amount, especially for a betta (they dont need as much filtering). You could try an internal filter....they are generally very gentle and they only cost like 15 bucks....

My filter is a whisper Internal filter by Tetra. It's for 1-3 gallons. It was around 6 or 7 dollars at Walmart. It's very gentle and he doesn't mind it, I just get paranoid that one day he won't hurry away from the filter in time.

I might make a little mesh to put over the filter so it's safer for me and I can have peace of mind.

Also, I have Aqueon Betta Food, and my previous Betta fish developed a fat belly because I might have fed them too much. For this new betta I have, I feed him three veryveryyy small pellets twice a day. Is that too much, or too little? I don't want him to get fat like my last ones and develop constipation like another one of mine did.